Review by Jacob Licklider

The second installment of the third series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions is continuing the idea of these sets being three stories wrapped around a theme.  This set has the Ninth Doctor traveling alone once again, but with the wraparound title of Travel in Hope giving the audience an immediate understanding of the overarching theme of the set.  This theme is the Doctor bringing some sort of hope, or causing some sort of hope for the future to come around, something that allows each of the three stories to really hammer home the idea of the hope that the Doctor himself is lacking, and the need for a companion.  This need for a companion was briefly solved in the previous set, Pioneers, but sadly that Doctor/companion relationship was limited to one story.  The continual use of the Ninth Doctor without Rose is becoming a clear issue and that issue is hanging over each episode of Travel in Hope, almost enough that it feels as if writers Lauren Mooney, Stewart Pringle, James Moran, and Robert Valentine are screaming at Big Finish to schedule some dates where Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper can get together and record some stories so these turning wheels don’t just keep turning.  This is the tenth set for the Ninth Doctor Adventures and there are most likely two more where this issue will present itself, both being released in 2024.  The other solution would be to give the Ninth Doctor a second, pre-Rose companion, which may come with its own set of problems, but they would be a different set of problems with a different set of solutions as potentially interesting storytelling avenues to explore a la the forced gap Big Finish made work with the Fifth Doctor and Peri in the early monthly range.

Travel in Hope opens with a very tense horror story set on a teleportation relay station, Below There.  Lauren Mooney and Stewart Pringle provide this story as one set sometime after The Seeds of Death and the fall of the T-mat system.  This is a clever way to wrap this story in themes of the stagnation of late stage capitalism, the two workers on the relay station have very strict rules about what they are able to do and the corporation in charge is responsible for some genuine atrocities that destroy the cogs in their own machines because those cogs are disparate and can be easily replaced.  Vyx, played by Kelly Adams, is our one episode companion and much of the episode works because it is a two-hander between Vyx and the Doctor, from Vyx’s perspective.  Vyx comes from a society where her family is broken and barely a family, something that she is willing to make right, but terrified by the might of the corporation she works for, in a contract that is built to isolate.  Eccleston as the Doctor here is perfect at being the small candle flame of light to bring Vyx out of her essentially total isolation and while Howard Carter’s score is great, it’s actually Iain Meadows’ sound design that puts Below There on its own pedestal.  It’s difficult to make an empty soundscape work without feeling amateurish.  For instance, take a look at some of the very early 1998/1999 productions from Big Finish, they’re trying to portray something with scant resources to properly do so, and the way they feel empty is a different emptiness to Meadows’ work on Below There.  This story makes you feel as if you’re really alone in the universe and the blackness of space is closing in, making the Doctor’s brightness by the end feel more comforting and inviting, which is kind of a shame when Vyx doesn’t become a companion at the end, still this is a wonderfully crafted start to the set.  9/10.

The second episode of the set comes from one of the few contributors to contribute to the revived series and Torchwood as James Moran provides a tribute to classic murder mysteries with The Butler Did It.  Less Agatha Christie, more television mystery play, Moran’s script continues to give the Ninth Doctor a one-off companion and critiques aspects of late-stage capitalism, all with science fiction trappings.  Like Below There before it the setting is out of the way, this time a repair port for spaceships as people begin to be picked off one by one, building to a conclusion where the murderer is revealed to be killing to grow their station in life, mirroring the way capitalists will break down class lines to set lower classes against one another instead of banding together in solidarity.  Where The Butler Did It excels is the chemistry and investigative skills between Eccleston and Emma Swan as Myra, investigating independently and together in some wonderful sequences.  Once again the emphasis is on the fact that the Doctor needs somebody and James Moran does such a good job at making that obvious, plus a nice double role from Big Finish stalwart Louise Falkner.  And with the title essentially giving away who did it, Moran does a howcatchem instead of the standard whodunnit, despite referencing Murder, She Wrote in the dialogue where Columbo may have been more appropriate.  7/10.

Run is the least subtle in terms of its political messaging, mainly due to Robert Valentine being an unsubtle writer when it comes to his political messages.  The story is another in the long line of Peladon and Peladon-adjacent stories where Alpha Centauri, played once again by the wonderful Jane Goddard who has been playing the role on and off for over a decade, is in a position where they must stand for president of the Galactic Federation as Bellatrix Vega, played by Jane Asher, is a right wing (fascist adjacent) demagogue who if elected would slide the Federation into authoritarianism.  The largest criticism of Run is perhaps Valentine’s commentary on the importance of electoralism as the only way to stop the rise of fascism instead of essentially a Band-Aid over the problem that needs to be fixed by more.  This could be occurring because Valentine didn’t intend the messaging to be this way which is likely, doing an origin story for Alpha Centauri from a fan of the Peladon/Federation stories, because that’s what Run is.  Goddard is great at giving Centauri this sense of youth and uncertainty while Asher and David Langham as Kramp make a wonderfully villainous double act.  There’s also a conspiracy underneath the election used to spiral Centauri into the position with the Doctor playing an almost backseat role, and in true Doctor fashion disappearing once the future is assured, Eccleston playing the Doctor as a caring and impassioned observer, getting involved in ways essential for Centauri to grow as a hermaphrodite hexapod on their own (with the right nudge).  8/10.

Overall, Travel in Hope has a wonderful theme at the centre despite the one singular issue running through each of the stories as they work around the fact that the Ninth Doctor has been on his own for quite a long time now and desperately needs a companion.  It’s a very solid set with a lot of the focus being on the hope in dark times brought about by situations that reflect our current society in interesting, if occasionally simplified ways, making it quite the engaging listen.  8/10.

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Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Hidden Depths

Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Pioneers

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